


Fold It Up

by PlayerProphet



Series: Nothing But Time [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha Timeline, Daddy Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 03:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayerProphet/pseuds/PlayerProphet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s a weird old guy. Some sort of old school funny man or some shit. Charlie Chaplin of the 60’s, that’s John Crocker. He doesn’t really get your jokes, all wrapped up in layers of irony like a Dave Strider onion, but he appreciates it as a fellow comedian you fucking guess. He’s no Daddy Warbucks to your Little Orphan Annie but he buys you lunch and takes your script and hands it to the right people, typed and in a pretty envelope, and in order to take the forward payment he has to bring you to the bank to get an account.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fold It Up

**Author's Note:**

> It is. Really hard. To figure out characters who are older. Especially when the character you're playing them off of is close to the same age as in canon. I'm still kinda of uncomfortable with Alpha!John but I tried to mix him up with Beta!John plus a bit of Nanna. A prankster, but someone who is really kind and responsible. He's probably that old guy who says really inappropriate things sometimes without any sense of political correct-ness and gets himself in trouble.
> 
> I'm working on the assumption too that [this pesterlog](http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004725) might have alluded to Dave's Alpha self.
> 
> This is for Meowgon!! Who said on tumblr that he kinda wanted to see this so I ran with it and everything that I plan into being long and in-depth turns into a vignette I'm sorry. I hope you weren't expecting porn. Also thanks also to Inkpool for giving it a beta. Also thanks to Brad (Avinoch) Griffin for giving me [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcLu27a7KLc&feature=related) to listen to to get me in a kinda sadstuck mood, and where the title came from also. That's a lot of thanks for this short little thing.

You ask him for a couple of bucks for the bus, which is stupid. Only idiots ask for bus change when they’re standing on a street corner with a styrofoam coffee cup. Obviously you don’t need change for the fucking bus, you need change for every fucking thing but you say it anyway. He’s just one god damn old man out of a million that will pass you by and not give you the time of day. You look past him toward the next oncoming chick, pushing a baby cart, and ask her for a “little change ma’am.” She walks by as though you hadn’t said anything to her, and you spot him out of the corner of your eye, spying on you.

“You can look all you like but today I’m charging dignity and you’ll have to pay up front.” And you shuffle around a little in your torn up sneakers because it’s cold outside and you feel like you’re balls deep in a snowbank.

“Would it cost extra to take you out to lunch?”

You pan your gaze to him and look him over from behind opaque everything-for-a-dollar store shades. He’s got to be old enough to need to take viagra and maybe he wants to take a spin on your hot young ass that’s about to fall out of your jeans if you don’t get a new pair soon. He’s got a fucking barber shop moustache growing on his face and watery blue eyes behind square glasses. All you’d eaten was a muffin with your shitty coffee so you say “yeah it costs extra. The reputation of eating where everyone can see you with a filthy punk.”

“I think I could spare some reputation,” he says, beckoning to you as he proceeds down the street. You watch after him for a sec, see his squared shoulders and salt-and-pepper hair. You don’t have time to be picky. You don’t have the funds. So you empty the two dollars and seventy-three cents into your hand and dump the coffee cup in a nearby trashcan. You follow after him, hands jammed in your pockets.

He’s a weird old guy. Some sort of old school funny man or some shit. Charlie Chaplin of the 60’s, that’s John Crocker. He doesn’t really get your jokes, all wrapped up in layers of irony like a Dave Strider onion, but he appreciates it as a fellow comedian you fucking guess. He’s no Daddy Warbucks to your Little Orphan Annie but he buys you lunch and takes your script and hands it to the right people, typed and in a pretty envelope, and in order to take the forward payment he has to bring you to the bank to get an account.

He whisks you off the street so fast you have no idea what’s going on. You play it cool like you just don’t care but then you sign a lease (he co-signs) and you realize suddenly that apartments maybe need furniture. But the idea of curling up on the carpet in the corner with the heat on is enough for you. You’ll take your shoes off and prop your socked feet up on the heater until they burn and sleep for a few days and when you’re done you’ll go down to the coffee shop on the corner and you’ll _eat whatever you want_ and that old bitch won’t snap at you about spare coffee cups because you don’t fucking need one. You’re better than her now, and there’s no denying it.

He tries to convince you to stay in a hotel instead of an empty apartment, but you flip him off and slam the door in his face.

You’re a little bit pissed off that he took your hard work away from you. He took away your own hard-earned success thanks to a favor. But when you stretch out against the heater on full blast you think that maybe you should just shut the fuck up. You sleep for three hours before you have to open the window to cool down a little, and sleep for ten hours more. You close the window again and lay on your back on the carpet and sleep for another twenty minutes before you go and pay with your own money the best meal you’ve had in your life.

He’s not mad. He seems like the kind of person who, as hard as you might try, would be pretty hard to get pissed off at you. Maybe when he was younger, but now he’s experienced in large quantities of passive-aggressive bullshit. When you do stuff that he deserves to be mad at you for he takes it out in stupid pranks. He’ll stick his foot in front of yours out of nowhere and laugh so hard you think he’s going to die. When he drives you places he will leave the car doors locked and gesture, bewildered at you, wondering why you can’t fucking get in. One time you respond by shattering the window with your elbow and when you climb in to the front seat he just laughs his ass off and you realize that you’re welcome to trump him anytime.

So you do.

You buy yourself some furniture with his help and he calls in or something and probably tips the delivery guys so much that they build everything and leave it sitting in the hallway. You drag in what you can, and what you can’t you leave there. You get back at him by taking him out to Thai food where absolutely everything has peanuts, and you make a sexy fucking show about how delicious that food is. You almost think he’s going to hit you.

He drops off some paperwork one day and you left your door open and you wake up with your pants taped to the ceiling, and boxers decorating the ceiling fan. Later that afternoon you “borrow” his convertible and drive it through a car wash with the roof down, smoking a cigarette. His son calls you and asks you to cease and desist from damaging their property but you just laugh in his ear, that privileged son of a bitch.

One night you come home and you really need to remember to lock the fucking door. It sits slightly open and you should have known better but he’s never pulled that one on you before. A bucket drops on your head and covers you in some sort of bright green goo and it’s cold. And you pull the fucking thing off of your head in time to have some novelty cannon blast you with confetti. He got you good but this time it hits a nerve and you manage to have the sense to get a shower first before driving over to Crocker’s fucking mansion with one can of spray paint in each hand. You barely cross the driveway before Crocker Junior intervenes and you punch him in the mouth. He clips your jaw and you bite through your lip. You jab him in the ribs and he grabs your arm, doing some sort of maneuver that works and you end up with your arms folded behind you in an uncomfortable origami, face in the grass. Something happened and you were just so furious and wanted something to snap, but he’s better than you. Of course he’s better than you.

John appears out of nowhere and Junior lets you up without a fuss and John tells you “you shouldn’t be here, get in the car.” He takes your keys from where they lay in the grass and points you to the vehicle and you stare at him for a while. You want to reach over and grab Junior’s throat and stick your thumbs in that money spot but it’s obvious he’s too good for you and John’s right there so you end up just following instructions like the spineless pussy you always said you would never, ever be. Your arms ache and your face hurts and you drop into the passenger’s seat. Your forehead clunks against the window and voices hum in from outside. You wonder what John tells him about you.

Eventually he opens the door and you stare ahead like an eight year old on a road trip. He doesn’t even acknowledge you as he turns the engine and drives you home, a stray to be delivered to the pound or shelter or whatever politically correct term there is for those kinds of things now. He parks the car and comes inside with you.

You want to ask him what he wants from you. A trophy whore? A charity case? Someone to suck his cock? But instead you sit on the toilet in the bathroom and he perches on the edge of the tub as he looks over your jaw. His fingers are rough with time but turn your head firmly, gently, and he tells you about his tight-ass son who can’t take a joke sometimes. He’s a good kid and he’s proud of him but he doesn’t understand you. Doesn’t understand your relationship. You sympathize because you don’t really understand it either.

“You ruined my jacket,” you tell him.

“It’s just stuff, Dave,” he says. “Things can be replaced.”

You run your teeth across his index finger.

You’re not John’s type. He doesn’t like guys. He’s not into young people really. You’re not into old dudes either and you hate his stupid moustache that definitely makes him look like a pedophile. But it’s not that bad, leaving a little scratching trail over your neck as you fist his hair, and again when he kisses the inside of your arm. He takes your shades when you slide between his legs. You make him say your name and it runs chills all through you. _He’s yours he’s yours and you’re his and that’s it, you don’t need anything_. You can stay by his side and no one really knows what’s going on and it’s better that way, you don’t even want to know. You’re his and he’s yours and he’ll take care of you and you’ll take care of him and fuck the world and anything it throws at you.

When he falls asleep next to you, you watch him for a while and wonder at the perverse thing you’ve gotten yourself into. You wonder if you should feel ashamed of it.

**Author's Note:**

> [One of my favorite artists did art for this](http://buffdaddyjohn.tumblr.com/post/14007031257).
> 
> Let me just.
> 
> Cry.


End file.
